BERKELEY – Long after his UCLA teammates had retreated to the locker room, Bruin All-America free safety Rahim Moore stood frozen on the Memorial Stadium's east sideline watching Cal celebrate a 35-7 victory in front of 61,664 on a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon.

"I just wanted to make sure I remember what happened," Moore said later.

Where do you start?

UCLA (3-3 overall, 1-2 Pac-10) was totally ineffective at stopping Shane Vereen and the Cal (3-2, 1-1) running game in an opening half in which the Golden Bears opened a 28-0 lead.

The Bruins wasted a series of chances to get back into the game with penalties, turnovers, sacks and dropped passes. Having relied on the Pistol offense's running game through the first five games, UCLA was forced to take the air Saturday but never got off the ground against a Cal front seven that dominated the afternoon.

But as Moore watched Cal celebrate its sixth consecutive victory against UCLA at Strawberry Canyon, he was convinced he stood on the edge of a missed opportunity, a chance for the Bruins, riding a three-game winning streak, to stay in the thick of the Pac-10 race wasted by their own failure to step up.

"They just out-executed us," Moore said. "We didn't come with enough emotion. We didn't come out there with the attitude like 'We're going to bust these dudes in the mouth. Every single play.' We did that maybe every now and then and you can't afford to do that."

As the Bruins try and regroup during a bye week before taking on No. 3 Oregon Oct. 21 in a nationally televised game in Eugene, Moore wasn't the only one questioning UCLA's readiness and heart.

"They came out and hit us hard, they hit us in the mouth in that first half. And we should have come out and stopped them in the first half and that's not what happened," defensive tackle David Carter said.

"There's definitely a lot of questions to be answered about how bad we want it," said tailback Johnathan Franklin.

So the Bruins head into the Oregon game, the first of three consecutive contests with teams that have appeared in the Associated Press Top 25 this season, and two weeks of soul searching once again an enigma.

"We have to find out who we are," Franklin said.

Are the Bruins the team that rolled over No. 23 Houston and No. 7 Texas? Or are they the self-destructive, drive-killing Bruins with a defense that couldn't tackle in a season-opening loss at Kansas State or Saturday when Cal had 387 yards total offense, 246 of it coming in the first half?

Cal opened the game with a 10-play, 70-yard, 4:31 scoring drive capped by a Vereen's 1-yard touchdown run that repeatedly exploited Bruin missed assignments and poor tackling.

"Right from the opening series, (the running game) set the tone," Cal quarterback Kevin Riley said.

"I got a good feeling early about running the ball," said Vereen, who finished with 151 yards and two TDs on 25 carries. "We had some good matchups. It was pretty soft inside."

A second Vereen touchdown that gave Cal a 14-0 lead with 5:56 left in the opening quarter came thanks in part to UCLA generosity.

After a defensive stop on Cal's second possession, Franklin fumbled and the Golden Bears recovered on the Bruin 17. Three plays later, Vereen scored.

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